Amps/Preamps for Rockport Aviors

Gasherbaum,

I am too sorry, we had to have Grpu come in and start his tit for tat attacking of us and our motives.

The whole point of my comment was for you to consider a brand of equipment that really does offer the best of both qualities of tubes with the best of solid state that you may not be aware of.

 As I mentioned before we have no skin in this game.

The T+A gear is really special and will work wonders on your Rockports.

The T+A gear  will give you much better bass control vs tubes, and  far greater dynamics. We love tubes as well, and for a demanding speaker 300-500 watts can't be a bad thing.

You will find that almost any good brand of electronics will work well with the Rockports, we have a customer with the Arakkis so we kind of know the house sound, It will also come down to the choice of cables, power conditioning, and of course your source components. 

Good luck in your search and call Rutherford Audio in Colorado if any of this gear interests you. 

Jim P.,

Thanks for the advice re amp/pre amp. Your Ref 3 Phono Stage is supposed to be amazing -- I have never heard it and wanted to compare it to the Boulder 1008 that I have, but the local dealer didn't have it -- he only had the PH9, which I must say gave the more expensive 1008 a run for its money, so I would be very interested to hear the Ref 3 someday.  I bought the 1008 used here on Audiogon, so was able to save some money. 

I did speak to Andy Payor very briefly and he suggested that I break the speakers in, listen with my Ref 75SE/LS17SE, and if I noticed anything lacking or missing to call him back and discuss the specifics of what is missing/lacking and then he would be able to better advise me then.  I was shocked that he just picked up the phone when I called and was willing to talk to me -- seems like great customer service.   

In the meantime, based on the feedback here I have contacted some other dealers here in Colorado and it looks like I may get a chance to audition some of the gear you all have recommended with the Rockports in my house in a few weeks after I've broken the speakers in.  I am also going to go and listen to them at the stores this weekend (or at least try) and listen to the gear on the store's speakers just to get a flavor for what they are like.  One of the dealers about an hour north of me in Fort Collins has VTL, ARC and D'Agostino, so I should be able to hear all 3 in one shot, which is nice.

Again, I appreciate everyone taking the time to try and help me out here.  I'm very excited about the new speakers and finalizing my system once I figure out what amp/preamp best works for me with the Aviors. 

Thank you, Larry     

I don't know about the Avior, but I have the Altair 2. I did a impedance curve trace of the speaker and it basically is a 2 ohm speaker. I tried all kinds of tube amps with them and I did not like the results. Tube amps do not like 2 ohm loads. I have found that solid state amps work best.

@gasherbaum  The last I heard philb7777 is very happy with ARC. He plans to upgrade his ref250 to SE when time to re-tube. Phil is nice guy so shoot him a PM.

I never heard VTL and ARC in the same system but both always sound good to me. ARC rolls KT150 so a bit more resolving, neutral ... then VTL rolling 6550/KT88. One is not better but just different.

I have ref250se and TAD E1 with similar efficiency to Avior, 88db @4ohm. My room is 22'x31'x15' and has no problems driving them so they should work for you.

Have fun at the Fort Collins dealer. Look forward to your update.

Our customer in New York is driving his Arrakis with MBL and the combo sounds great.